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Stripping for the Troops

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The Standing With IDF Facebook page is one of several venues where women are posting racy photos of themselves with pro-IDF slogans. Screenshot via JTA.

Some support Israel’s troops with prayer; others support them by raising money. But some are supporting the troops by stripping.

The Facebook page “Standing With IDF” was designed for women to show their support and boost soldiers’ morale with racy photos. The page features pictures of scantily clad women with messages of support to the Israel Defense Forces written on their bodies.

The page was unpublished by Facebook after a few days, and a new one with the same name has been created. It has spurred a slew of copycat pages.

Yafit Duer, the page’s volunteer moderator, said that she and her colleagues are working to get the original page up again.

The original page described its purpose as follows:

Fighting for the Israeli front. You’ll guard on top, we’ll guard your bottoms! We will win this battle of beauty for you.

Dear beloved IDF soldiers, we are here as an act of appreciation, you do not need to wait for 72 ugly virgins, you are our heroes. The beauty of Israel girls is waiting for you, here back home. Come back to us.

Additionally: among this page’s fans, we will have a monthly IDF soldier picked out for the special treatment… you know what they say, girls love heroes.

We would love to get your pics

Gavriel Beyo, the page’s creator, also started a similar page for men to post nude pictures. (That page was also removed, but it has not been replaced and hasn’t inspired copycats.)

Judging from messages posted to the “Standing With IDF” Facebook page, plenty of soldiers are enjoying it. “Thank you a thousand times, you girls are amazing me, and the paratroopers love you,” one soldier wrote.

But the page is not without its critics.

Jenny Kutner wrote on Salon that she hopes that “Standing With IDF has some deeper meaning I don’t see. Because a lot of people are dying, and that isn’t usually why people decide to show their boobs.”

Beyo, who has an advertising agency and runs an investment company, wrote: “You can say I was trying to romanticize IDF and Israel… [and] boost the soldiers sacrificing their lives and best years for us. I got reminded of the old days’ Pin-Up pictures of girls, you always see the soldiers looking at before battle, and thought that after a gloomy and scaring battle — that can serve as an ease.”

Beyo said he had received thousands of positive responses and was told that after returning from operations members of one unit look at the page before calling home, taking a shower or eating.